


The Third in Motion

by strange_estrangement



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 17:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15890652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_estrangement/pseuds/strange_estrangement
Summary: Ronan attends Kavinsky’s funeral.





	The Third in Motion

Ronan woke up in the backseat of the BMW. He closed his eyes again, sun too bright, and swallowed twice before groping for one of the pairs of sunglasses that always seemed to collect in the back—thrown over his shoulder, snatched from his companion, tossed in the back window from outside. He rubbed his eyes, gritty, before squinting through his lashes. The pair he grabbed had white frames. He threw them against the opposite window; he wouldn’t touch them. He braced himself against the front seat before pulling himself upright, gingerly, muttering “Jesus fuck” under his breath. He slid across the backseat, leather not yet hot and sticky from the Virginia sun, swung open the door, and climbed out.

A whiskey bottle lay shattered by his feet.

* * *

He’d started too early last night with what he felt, at the time, was an appropriate pre-game, pre-wake attitude. Gansey had come outside a little before dusk.

“Ronan.”

“What do you want?”

Gansey had paused, like he wasn’t sure what to say next. Ronan hated that pause. How could he know? He’d never—he hadn’t ever—

“Do you want me to come tomorrow?”

Ronan had shrugged. “You can if you want. You went to school with him too.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Look, I don’t care, all right? Do what you want to do. I don’t care.”

Gansey had scuffed the toe of his shoe against the pavement, worrying at a faded white line. “I’m just saying...Please, Ronan.”

“I already told you I don’t care. You seem like you’ve made up your mind already. I don’t know why you’re bothering to ask me.”

Gansey had rubbed at his forehead. “It’s at 11 tomorrow. Will you come inside?”

Ronan had laughed, mocking. “What, and miss all this?” He’d swept his arm across the empty parking lot and toward the sunset, orange and fading like the last embers of a fire. Like—

Gansey had stared at Ronan for a beat. Ronan had stared back but couldn’t hold it for long. He’d looked down at his own shoes, the edges worn and frayed. Gansey had continued, “If you do come in, just…I’ll be up, Ronan.”

“Whatever, dude.”

Gansey had turned and left, shoulders squared but head bent. He’d kicked at a pebble, and Ronan had watched it skitter across the parking lot. He’d grabbed the neck of the bottle that he’d set on top of his car and drank. Burn, grimace, repeat.

Hours later, the only light had glimmered from Monmouth’s top-story windows. Gansey had indeed stayed up, true to form. Ronan had flipped off the building, Gansey, this entire miserable town, the good goddamn state of Virginia, God himself, if he gave a shit, and karma if he didn’t. Was this it, the black place just outside the glow? It sucked. He’d staggered back against the BMW, bottle in hand. He had rooted around under his bed earlier and pulled it out partially empty, just glad he didn’t have to run to the ABC with a fake ID in hand. Fake IDs—

He’d drained the rest, barely enough to coat the inside of his mouth, plenty enough to burn the cut on the inside of his cheek where he’d bit it hard, too hard, and then ground in frustration. He’d bitten down on the cut again just to wake himself up a little. He was so tired. So fucking tired. He’d wheeled around and slammed the bottom of the bottle against the roof of the car. He’d left it there and ran his hands from the back of his neck up to his forehead.

“They keep leaving me. They keep leaving.” He’d run his hands over his head again and again, like he could have peeled off his skin and climbed outside of himself. “They keep leaving.”

He’d grabbed the empty bottle, chill from the cooled roof and heavy in his hand, and started to walk back to Monmouth. He’d pivoted sharply, grasping the bottle by the neck, and hurled it against the rear door. It had shattered. Ronan had slumped to the ground, so different from that night—

Ronan was no stranger to throwing glass bottles against empty cars. He’d remembered the euphoria, remembered those hollow eyes and a hand flat on a ribcage, remembered the flames exploding upwards, glass from the windows shooting out far but not far enough to touch them, invincible young gods.

Tonight, he was alone.

* * *

Ronan had fucked up his paint job the night before. That damn bottle. A deep gouge the length of his finger stretched across the back door, and smaller scratches radiated out from that violent wound. Fitting, Ronan thought, this eulogy.

He left the BMW sitting in the parking lot, scratched paint and all, and headed into Monmouth. He could hear the shower running, so he opened the door to his room, the speeding ticket in the top corner finally losing its battle to gravity. He let it fall.

Gansey had gone into his room last night and left a glass of water and a rattling bottle of Advil behind. He knew not to breach Ronan’s room; Ronan would normally be angry about it, par for the course, but his head hurt too much. He tossed back the Advil and drank half the glass before sitting slowly on the edge of his bed to let his stomach settle.

The last time he went to one of these, he’d worn a suit, and Declan had driven him in his shiny, spotless Volvo. He’d outgrown the suit, balling it up into a black plastic trash bag and consigning it to the dumpster. Declan had worn a suit too, although doubtless if he were to come today he’d wear a different one. Something sharp and black, crisp white sleeves peeking out at his wrists, a gray tie striped with a color becoming of his future constituency. Ronan wouldn’t match this time. Any semblance of family unity they’d formed that day had been quickly dispelled, and Ronan would sooner die than give Declan the satisfaction of looking appropriately coiffed at a funeral.

He dug one of several identical black tanks from his dresser, the kind that came in packs of three from overlarge department stores. His jeans were all crumpled in a pile in the corner, carefully distressed with a razor at the knees and thighs. On the other side of the wall, he heard the shower shut off and the door open. He heard feet shuffle outside his door and then stop, and he imagined Gansey about to knock, about to ask him if he wanted any breakfast, coffee maybe, Ronan, you should eat something, your stomach will thank you later. Instead, the footsteps retreated to the front door, paused, likely to pull on shoes, and then the door opened and clicked shut. Ronan closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, and then opened them again.

He took a quick shower and pulled on his boxers and socks. He retreated again to his room and stared at his jeans and tank. He didn’t know—he didn’t know what to wear, really. He wore a tank every day; should he look normal? How much effort should he put into a funeral appearance anyway? Was it disrespectful to think about himself so much? K would’ve laughed at him. K would have been gratified to watch him squirm.

In the end, he switched his tank for a dark button down and his distressed jeans for a pair so far unaltered by midnight restlessness. His boots, he kept.

Gansey came back a few minutes later with a white bag, bottomed with grease, and two coffees balanced in his other hand. Ronan glanced at him and looked away; Gansey didn’t say anything. Ronan perched on the end of the pool table and unwrapped a breakfast sandwich of dubious quality, but his stomach, no longer sloshing uncomfortably, growled.

Gansey interrupted the silence. “So, we should get going. Do you want to drive, or—”

Ronan shrugged. “I might hang out after, so.”

Another pause. “Okay, I’ll see you there. Ronan…”

“See you.”

Gansey left.

Ronan returned to his room and dug his keys out of the pocket of his discarded jeans, grabbed his phone from under a pile of dream things on his desk. He’d turned it off three days ago and hadn’t turned it back on; he figured he’d leave it that way.

Outside, he ran his thumb over the ugly marks in the side of his car, rough edges of the paint scratching at his skin, before opening the front door and slipping in. The sunglasses he’d thrown earlier were still in the back, he knew, but he didn’t want to touch them. The mark in his car was enough of a tribute; he didn’t need to add to it.

He’d never been to the funeral home before. He’d passed it before in his long, winding detours to avoid getting to school on time, a single story brick building, looking like nothing so much as the small, featureless Protestant churches that seemed to litter the town. Niall’s funeral had been at St. Agnes with the appropriate amount of ceremony for a good, Catholic family. Kavinsky’s family, he supposed, didn’t have a church in Henrietta.

Ronan found a parking spot near the back of the lot. He’d thought, for a moment, that no one would show up. K had a lot of acquaintances and few friends, but he knew a funeral service could draw a crowd of casual mourners like nothing else. Kavinsky was a spectacle, and the people intended to be entertained. Ronan hated them.

He climbed out of the car, shut the door, and put his hands in his pockets. He didn’t see anyone else in the parking lot, but he suddenly felt underdressed. He’d felt overdressed at Monmouth, but, now facing a long walk through the parking lot, under the portico, and through a set of double doors, he was doubting himself. Was he being disrespectful? Who wears jeans and boots to a funeral? Assholes.

He couldn’t change, he didn’t have the time, so he headed inside.

Gansey was waiting in the lobby, off to one side and reading a program. He looked up when the front door opened, like he’d been waiting for Ronan. He imagined Gansey had looked up every time the door opened, hoping Ronan would make it and not blow this off. Quiet murmurs filled the lobby, individually respectful but compounding to a steady pitch. Ronan’s skin buzzed with it. He caught Gansey’s eye, and they made their way through the crowd to the chapel. The carpet was thick underfoot, plush, and Ronan wondered how well wheels would roll over it. He imagined it was better than hardwood, the wheels _tick-tick-ticking_ , his skin itching.

Gansey led the way to a row of chairs near the front; Ronan wished they were farther back but he was unwilling to grab Gansey’s arm and pull him around. A few guests were scattered among the rows, and they’d started to trickle in faster the closer it got to 11. A couple took the seats in front of Ronan and Gansey, quietly talking about weekend plans and oh, did you hear, construction is starting next week out near the drag strip. Ronan knew why the drag strip needed construction, but he didn’t much want to think about it.

The couple smoothly transitioned from the Fourth tragedy to the proceedings of the day.

“I heard his mom didn’t want to travel—or couldn’t—so they’re burying him here.”

“I heard she flew in a priest from Bulgaria because they don’t have one in town. They don’t seem like the churchgoing type.”

The couple leaned their heads closer together. Ronan started to lean forward, eyes narrowing, lips curling.

Gansey elbowed him in the side. “Ronan, don’t.”

Ronan leaned back and flicked his eyes over. “I wasn’t, ok?”

Gansey sighed and handed Ronan the program.

Ronan opened it but couldn’t stop thinking about St. Agnes. The building was his secret keeper, accepting, accusing, absolving in equal measure. He’d buried his father there, nearly died there, knelt every week there, and closed his eyes during communion there. It had held every one of his secrets silently and faithfully; thinking about the past few years without St. Agnes, Ronan felt unmoored.

He wondered if K ever felt like that. Ronan didn’t know if he’d gone to mass in Bulgaria with his parents or in New Jersey before it all went sour, before his mother started her affair with cocaine and his father flirted with the Jersey mob. He’d moved here though, to Henrietta—small town, small religion. Ronan imagined moving somewhere new, to a place where he couldn’t lower the kneeler each Sunday, couldn’t allow the Eucharist to pass him by, couldn’t silently hate himself in the peace of a wooden pew, hymns carrying across the congregation. K didn’t have any of that, and Ronan wondered if he’d missed it.

The chapel had filled up, almost to capacity, and people had stopped trickling in. Near the front of the chapel, K’s pack sat in a neat line; Ronan hadn’t noticed them come in. Jiang, Skov, and Swan all wore neat, funeral-appropriate suits, slim-cut and sharp. Ronan looked for Prokopenko before he remembered. Proko would not be coming.

Across the aisle in the front row sat Kavinsky’s mother. Ronan hadn’t noticed her before, but he supposed she’d come to the funeral home with Kav—with the body. Ronan had never met her, but he’d heard the rumors. She wore a small black hat, tilted, and a fine mesh veil. A large black coat was draped over the back of the pew, despite the summer heat. Ronan envied her, her ability to hide herself, her eyes, from other people. He shook his head; he knew he didn’t envy her, not really, not now, but he’d rather hide too. It was easy to imagine the similarities between her and her son, a boy who enjoyed the safety of his own shades.

Ronan had avoided looking farther than the front row, but now a door opened to the right of the—the casket. A priest walked out, presumably the priest that the dicks in front of him had mentioned. Two attendants near the front of the room, probably employed by the funeral home, also walked forward and rotated the casket. The open casket. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d assumed it would have been closed. He looked down at his lap, clenched his hands into fists, knuckles turning white. He’d assumed he wouldn’t have to look. He didn’t want to look. He couldn’t look at another—body. He couldn’t look at a body. He felt Gansey shift, his shoulder now against Ronan’s. He stayed rigid.

He looked back up. The casket was now parallel to the aisle, a lit candle in a bowl on either end. The attendants had retreated to either side of the first row of chairs. The priest started speaking, asking everyone to silence their phones. It seemed so out of place, a priest in vestments and a corpse in the room, and he was asking after their phones. The priest motioned for them to stand as he began the liturgy, first in English and then in what Ronan assumed was Bulgarian. It felt disjointed; he’d heard some of the passages before, at least in English, but the Latin didn’t follow. He felt like he was descending stairs in the dark, counting, but the bottom step wasn’t there like he was expecting. It jarred. He clasped his hands in front of him and squeezed.

The priest continued, making the sign of the cross, swinging incense, and, eventually, motioning them to sit again. He moved from behind the casket to the front and started speaking again. English for the homily, it seemed. This, this was more familiar. Funeral homilies didn’t vary much, he guessed; he’d heard this friendly tone, this casual familiarity with the family, these metaphors during Niall’s funeral. They’d seemed appropriate though, during Niall’s funeral. He’d idolized his father, and even through the haze the words seemed to fit him.

This seemed wrong.

The longer the priest went on, talking about K’s family or his relationship with the church or his propensity for mischief—Mischief! Ronan thought. Mischief! Is that what they were calling it?—the angrier he got. The guests nodded, laughed, bowed their heads in somber silence at the appropriate times, like they knew what the priest was talking about. Like they agreed. What did this fucking priest know about Kavinsky? He wasn’t there for any of it and the rest—the rest were there for an obituary that would never be printed. In Memoriam: Joseph Kavinsky, procurer of driver’s licenses, dispenser of neon pills, provider of glowing, shimmering stuff that got you hammered faster than anything else, streetracer, would-be mobster, ill-devoted son, and dubious friend.

Ronan had relaxed during the beginning of the homily, but now he bowed his head, squeezed his eyes shut, and bit the inside of his cheek again, hard. He tasted blood. It seemed right, during this funeral, that someone should be bleeding.

The priest finished speaking, finally, and Ronan looked back up. Gansey had shifted again, pressing his shoulder to Ronan’s, but he hadn’t noticed.

The priest, after making the sign of the cross, said, “At this time, I’d like to invite our funeral attendants to prepare Joseph for the last kiss.”

Ronan froze. The last kiss? The priest was still speaking as the attendants moved the casket in parallel to the guests again, giving instructions for how the assembled mourners should proceed up the aisle and where they should go after—to their cars, to the cemetery if they felt called, and then to a local hotel for the reception. Ronan’s cheek was still bleeding.

Mrs. Kavinsky rose first, walking straight-backed to the casket and bending to kiss something near the middle. She smoothed back K’s hair, pausing, and then bent again to kiss his forehead. She returned to her seat, stiff and facing forward. The next few rows of people began lining up. Ronan watched the ritual, all of them kissing the object in the middle, a few kissing K’s forehead, most not, before they exited out the side. Jiang and Skov were next, exchanging a look before Jiang kissed once and then twice. Skov followed his lead; Swan did not. Upset about Proko, Ronan thought.

His row stood and lined up in front of the casket. Ronan’s pulse started pounding, his breaths coming a little shorter. Gansey put his hand on his shoulder; Ronan twitched away. He put his hands in his pockets, fiddling with a bit of lint, trying to breathe deeply and surreptitiously. It didn’t feel like it was working. He ran the lint around in his fingers, balled it up, separated it again. He still couldn’t breathe right. The line moved, and he stepped forward. And again. And again. The line was moving too quickly, he could tell. Why wouldn’t it just slow down? He was too close. There was someone in front of him, and then there wasn’t.

Ronan stepped up to the casket and looked down. His eyes blurred; he blinked twice. The object in the middle—placed on top of Kavinsky’s hands—was an icon, a saint that Ronan didn’t recognize. Easy enough. He bent down and kissed it, eyes closed. He didn’t want to look at Kavinsky’s hands. He opened his eyes and moved to the head of the casket. Kavinsky’s eyes were closed, and his color was better than it had been for as long as Ronan had known him. Ironic. He looked young, too, younger than he had looking grinning by the light of a burning car. He looked—

The stillness, it was the stillness that bothered Ronan. He’d never seen K so still, not even when they were dreaming together. Even dreaming, Ronan would watch the staccato beat of the pulse in his throat, the stutter, the violent lurch forward, the triumphant, full-body laugh. A pen cap twirled in quick fingers, a bomb, a gun. This, here, was a body, stopped. That’s the thing that was so unnerving; Kavinsky was stilled-paused-stopped, and his possibilities were stopped with him. Ronan was so unsure about his own future, but he could see the hazy shape of it unspooled out in front of him, a long thread winding through Gansey’s life, through Adam and Blue and Noah’s, through the Barns, through college maybe. Kavinsky’s strings had been cut.

Ronan was taking too long. He knew he was taking too long. The others were probably staring, and the back of his neck prickled with it. His eyes traveled from the still pulsepoint in his throat, past his full lips and long nose, up to his closed eyes—did K feel safe behind those closed eyes now? Ronan bent down and pressed his lips to Kavinsky’s forehead.

He gripped the side of the coffin, fingers pressing into the soft white lining. Kavinsky was cold. He knew Kavinsky would be cold but he hadn’t expected the feeling on his lips. He was cold, and he was dead. This was a corpse, strings cut, no possibilities. He could hear Gansey’s voice echoing, _“You know the difference between us and Kavinsky? We_ matter _.”_

He’d said it too, after he got what he wanted from Kavinsky, before he left him there alone with his dream things. It had felt right at the time. The way to think, what to do, the way to be. The example Gansey had set, how badly Ronan wanted to follow him. He’d chosen a side, the side that _mattered_ , and he’d twisted the knife on his way out. _“It was never gonna be you and me. Is that what you thought?”_

He lifted his lips from his forehead, just a little, just enough to gasp. He felt tears gathering in his eyes, burning at the corners and threatening to slip out. He bit his bottom lip and then his top, pressed them together. _“We matter.”_ He straightened, swiped at his eyes, turned on his heel, and left.

He kept his eyes down, vision still blurry, moving fast to the back of the room and out into the lobby. He didn’t wait for Gansey. He pushed open the double doors and walked, picking up speed, toward the back of the parking lot. He didn’t remember where he’d left his car. There. Second to last row. He fumbled his keys out of his pocket—jeans! He was so fucking stupid. Why would his jeans even _matter_ —and unlocked the car. He rubbed his eyes again and then paused to touch the scratch, damp fingers leaving his tears on the paint. He climbed in the car and put his head on the steering wheel before hitting it once, twice, three times.

A tap on the window. Ronan jerked up and glanced out. Gansey. He rolled down the window an inch, said, “I’ll meet you there,” and rolled the window back up. Gansey looked at him but didn’t tap again.

Ronan waited and waited for the rest of the guests to filter out to their cars, watched the funeral attendants load the casket into the hearse parked under the portico, saw Mrs. Kavinsky climb into a shiny black car behind the hearse. The hearse pulled out, and Ronan put on his blinkers. Many of the guests—K’s “friends,” Ronan thought—weren’t joining the processional. They’d seen what they came to see, Ronan guessed, twisting the leather on his steering wheel hard. His hand on the clutch was white knuckled.

Ronan backed out of his parking space and pulled out onto the road. He glanced in his rearview mirror; Gansey followed a couple cars behind. He should’ve told Gansey not to come last night. He was dumb and drinking and thinking about the wake for close friends and family, happening right then somewhere in Henrietta, and he wasn’t thinking about how today would be with Gansey there. Stupid.

The procession drove smoothly through town, arriving at the cemetery and winding through scattered headstones. Ronan parked farther up and got out of his car. He started walking back toward the hearse, lagging behind a few other people. He saw Mrs. Kavinsky sitting in a row of chairs in front of the grave—alone—with Jiang, Skov, and Swan standing to one side, black clothes in sharp contrast with the white flowers heaped around the casket and arranged in standing wreaths.

Once everyone had gathered, the priest started reciting the liturgy. He invited the guests to place a flower on the casket, pulled from one of the arrangements. Ronan pulled his flower and placed it on the casket, fingers dragging along the cool wood for a moment before he returned to his place. Gansey also placed a flower and glanced at Ronan before looking away.

The priest prayed, one final time, before reminding guests about the reception and inviting the guests to stay for the burial if they chose. Ronan couldn’t stay here behind Mrs. Kavinsky, straight-backed and stiff, while they shoveled dirt into her son’s grave.

Gansey was waiting for him back on the path, head bent and shoes scuffing at the pavement. He looked up when Ronan got closer, ready to ask how Ronan was doing, if there was anything he could do, what Ronan’s plans were for the reception. Ronan couldn’t answer any of it. He was strung too thin, pulled too taut, and he knew he’d snap. He kept walking back to his car, Gansey trailing behind. He felt a hand at his elbow and wheeled around sharply, the expression on Gansey’s face switching, blink-quick, from somber to surprised.

“I know you don’t care about this but it matters to me, all right? It. It fucking _matters_.” It mattered, Ronan thought. Why didn’t it matter when K was still alive?

Gansey looked down, ears pink and shoulders hunched. It was the first time he hadn’t looked in control of himself since—

“I do care. I wanted you to have this,” Gansey gestured toward the grave. “You know he wouldn’t have—you know he wouldn’t have had something like this. It’s the same for you! You know he wouldn’t have been able to have a funeral like this.” Gansey still couldn’t make steady eye contact; Ronan stared at him, not giving an inch. “I do care. I just wanted to know—”

“Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“I’m not lying! I care about you—”

“Yeah, you don’t give a shit about this.” He pointed to the grave, kept his arm outstretched. “You were so set on establishing your hierarchy of. Of fucking moral superiority that you didn’t even take a second to ask me about it. And you know what? It’s fine. I wouldn’t have lied to you about it like you’re lying to me right now, but it’s fine. It’s over. Moral hierarchy established.” He stepped back, still staring at Gansey. Gansey’s eyes kept flicking over to his and away, over and away. “I’m staying. You can go mingle with the rest of them at the reception, but I’m staying.” He took another step back, turned around, and started walking. “I’ll see you.”

Gansey didn’t follow. He arrived at the BMW and heard the Pig’s engine stutter, start, and shift into first. Gansey passed him, but Ronan didn’t look up. He knew Gansey was right, partly; if Ronan had died in that church, all those months ago, he wouldn’t have received a Catholic funeral. He’d be shunted off to the side, buried in some cemetery reserved for those God abandoned, or maybe who’d abandoned God. Kavinsky was the same. Ronan hadn’t said anything, and neither had Gansey, Blue, Adam, or Noah. They’d given him this, but now the gift felt poison-barbed and hateful. He felt cold skin against his lips and shivered.

He put his hands on the roof of the car, folded, and looked back to the grave. A groundskeeper had collected the flowers off to one side, to be left at the grave or delivered to the Kavinsky residence, Ronan wasn’t sure, and he saw another driving a bucket loader up the path toward the grave. A third fiddled with something next to the casket; the casket started moving, lowering into the grave. It moved so slowly. He hadn’t expected it to move so slowly.

He hadn’t stayed at the funeral home to watch them close the casket. He hadn’t thought about it at the time, but now he was glad he hadn’t. This was enough.

The casket finished its descent, and the groundskeepers removed the metal poles, the boards, the green turf from the sides of the grave and the mound of dirt next to it, piling everything into a nearby truck. Dust to dust, Ronan thought. One of the workers climbed in the bucket loader and drove forward, pushing the dirt into the grave. Ronan blinked, eyes filling. This was it. He looked down, hands still folded. He wanted to twist the leather bands around his wrist; he settled for prodding the cut inside his cheek with his tongue. It wasn’t bleeding anymore. He looked back up. The bucket loader had made a tidy mound over the grave, and the funeral director, still present, stepped forward to escort Mrs. Kavinsky back to a waiting car. The workers tore down the tent, folded up the chairs, loaded their truck, and drove off.

No headstone yet. Ronan wasn’t sure what it would say; he wasn’t sure he could come back here to find out.

He looked around; the grounds were empty, the guests having long gone to the reception and the groundskeepers attending to other business around the cemetery. Good. He wanted to be alone. He opened the back door of his car, covered with broken-bottle eulogy, and grabbed Kavinsky’s sunglasses, hooking them into the collar of his shirt. He walked back down the path toward the grave and across the grass, the tops of his boots sprinkled with dew and grass freshly cut. He stood next to the grave, now heaped with dirt, and crouched down. He pinched a bit of it, sprinkled it in his palm, ran it between his fingers. Alone, together. It always seemed like that, with them.

He brushed his hands together over the grave, dirt sprinkling from his palms. He unhooked the shades and ran his fingers around the frames, white plastic smooth and spotless. He held them up to his face, slid them on. They were tinted dark, very dark, but the blue in the sky radiated bright. Everything was muted except for the blues, the tint in the grass, the flowers left on a nearby grave. This, another dream object, made everything beautiful. This is what K saw when he looked at the world. Ronan took them off and rubbed his eyes with one hand, rubbed the crease in his forehead. K may have done a lot of things wrong, but not everything.

He stood up again, paused, looked out over the headstones. They weren’t arranged in neat rows so much as scattered across the gentle slope, filled graves next to empty ones, waiting for partners to join them. Alone, but maybe someday together.

He folded the glasses up, running his thumb against the frame one last time. He placed them on top of the grave, empty of flowers, no headstone. He felt like the grave should have a marker, like maybe K should have these in the end, like maybe wherever he was they’d make things a little more beautiful.

Ronan turned and walked back to the path, leaving the grave behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [thegeminisage](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeminisage) and [ald0us](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ald0us) for editing and encouragement.


End file.
